Country Joe McDonald plays his last concert — maybe.
The Chapel marquee read “Country Joe’s 50th Anniversary & Farewell to San Francisco Show,” and when the doors opened, a long line of fans rushed to get seats near the stage. Nobody noticed the expressionless man in the plain pullover sweatshirt and fedora sitting at a table by the door.
It was Country Joe McDonald himself. He estimated that the Friday, Dec. 22, show would be his 3,000th concert, and he was selling CDs for $15 during the opening act outside the Mission District music hall.
“It’s my last club show, that’s for sure,” said the 75-year-old musician, seated alongside his wife, Kathy. “It’s just too hard. I’m done.”
It’s been five decades since the folkrock singer and antiwar activist broke through with Country Joe and the Fish, one of the top acts linked to the San Francisco music scene during the Summer of Love. The band’s psychedelic debut, “Electric Music for the Mind and Body,” was released in May 1967, and on Friday, McDonald rewarded his longtime fans by playing that album in its entirety to wrap up his three-night pre-Christmas tour — minus the four original members, who started leaving the band in 1969.
McDonald started his farewell tour at
the Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley last weekend, passed through the Freight & Salvage in his hometown of Berkeley on Thursday, Dec. 21, and finished at the Chapel on Friday night, performing for hundreds of fans from around the world.
Marc Gilbert, who held the front spot in line for the final show, flew in from Paris with his wife and two daughters to witness it. “I’ve been listening to him since 1975,” said Gilbert, 62. “I’m happy to see him because it’s his last performance.”
Naturally, there was talk of whether the Chapel concert would truly be McDonald’s last. Todd Rundgren was said to be retired in Hawaii when he returned dressed in a sarong to play a school benefit at the Fillmore in the 1990s. He hasn’t stopped since and was booked to play as recently as Friday night at the Uptown Theatre in downtown Napa. Nostalgia act Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs perfected the art of coming out of retirement by playing an annual “farewell show” for 33 consecutive years.
“In my profession I can keep retiring for the rest of my life,’’ admitted McDonald, emphasizing that while he would never again play indoors, he would certainly accept a call from Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the city’s annual three-day free outdoor music festival.
But some things aren’t up to him.
With arthritis in his wrist and back, McDonald said he can no longer stand and play.
“He has a lot of pain,” said Kathy, a delivery room nurse at Kaiser Permanente Oakland who is also retiring. Plus, Kathy added, they have five adult children and three grandchildren; a fourth is due around McDonald’s 76th birthday on New Year’s Day.
“I always meant to see him live,” said Ken Butler, 63, of San Francisco, who was second in line with his wife, Sherry. “But I’ve only seen him in the movie.”
The movie was “Woodstock,” which earned Country Joe and the Fish an inordinate amount of screen time to perform their anthem, “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag,” which was always preceded by “The Fish Cheer,” a crowd spell-out cheer that McDonald started with “Give me an F! Give me an I ...” and so on.
But at Woodstock it went “Give me an F! Give me a U ...” and it was ever thus.
“I thought I’d be a sensitive poet,” he said. “Now I’m known as the guy who spelled ‘f—.’ ”
McDonald watched bemusedly from his table as the crowd of about 300 silver-haired music lovers — slightly under capacity — filed by. “I saw three or four young people here tonight,” he noted.
He must have been referring to San Franciscans Brooke Brenton and Amanda Owen-Walkup, both 23, and 24-year-old Alexis Glaros, who all looked like they came directly from the 1967 Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park.
“I’m grateful we get to see him once,” added Owen-Walkup, “but it’s another farewell to the Summer of Love.”
Then the lights went down and McDonald came onstage to take his seat. His first words on his last night?
“Give me an F ...”